ASM Inventory

World Map of Artisanal and Small-scale Mining: ASM Population

Map 1: Estimated number of artisanal and small-scale miners per country

World Map of Artisanal and Small-scale Mining: Rural ASM Population (%)

Map 2: Estimated number of artisanal and small-scale miners as percentage of rural population

Notes:

Numbers of artisanal and small-scale miners were estimated from published sources believed reliable (see below).
Sources date from different years, with the first comprehensive inventory published already back in 1999.
Estimations take this partly into account, adjusting the numbers to recent changes of the ASM context
(e.g. correlation of attractivity of ASM with commodity prices, where applicable, according to main ASM commodities of the countries;
or demographic changes).

Another issue is related with the underlying definition of ASM.
Only recently a broad description of ASM was formulated by OECD that has the potential to be widely accepted as a generic ASM definition.
Data from past inventories were assessed using different ASM definitions and sometimes even mixed approaches
(i.e. respecting different country-specific assessment methods) related to what is considered ASM.

Finally assessments by different sources also vary in their focus on minerals extracted by ASM.
Some assessments focus more on gold, as the most emblematic ASM commodity,
other assessments take a more holistic approach covering also minerals extracted artisanally for local supply such as construction materials.

The dataset currently contains quantitative data from 77 countries and qualitative data from 32 countries. Based on these data, a number
of 40.5 million ASM miners (+/- 25%) is considered plausible. To improve data consistency, more work is needed,
particularly benchmarking ASM country data with contemporary ASM definitions such as from OECD (see below),
disaggregating by gender, and aligning criteria for counting ASM miners.

Main Map Data Sources:

Global baseline studies

ILO (1999)(N.Jennings): Social and labour issues in small-scale mines. Report for discussion at the Tripartite Meeting on Social and Labour Issues in Small-scale Mines. Geneva.

ASM Definition

What is Artisanal and Small-scale Mining (ASM)?

The often quoted expression "Artisanal mining is meaning different things to different people" reflects the vast diversity of a sector
for which, since the 1970s, it appeared almost impossible to agree on a common definition.
In 2004, participants of the World Bank led "small-scale mining is here to stay - workshop" in Bulawayo still "defined" the activity by stating:
"We recognize artisanal small-scale miners when we see them".
A lot of progress has been achieved since. In 2012, for the purpose of distinguishing between ASM and other mining activities,
the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), in Annex 2 of its Due Diligence Guidance, formulated an ASM definition
that describes ASM as:

"formal or informal mining operations with predominantly simplified forms of exploration, extraction, processing, and transportation.
ASM is normally low capital intensive and uses high labour intensive technology. ASM can include men and women working on an individual basis
as well as those working in family groups, in partnership, or as members of cooperatives or other types of legal associations and enterprises
involving hundreds or even thousands of miners. For example, it is common for work groups of 4-10 individuals, sometimes in family units,
to share tasks at one single point of mineral extraction (e.g. excavating one tunnel). At the organisational level, groups of 30-300 miners are common,
extracting jointly one mineral deposit (e.g. working in different tunnels), and sometimes sharing processing facilities."